Growing Mobile VAS in India: Data MVNO Opportunity

What kind of data services would the Data MVNO offer? Here are some starting examples:

SMS subscriptions (push-based microcontent)

Voice portals

Content downloads (mobile games, apps, etc.)

Video downloads / streaming

mCommerce

What is common to all of these services is that consumers pay for each one of them. Offering them free in the hope of getting ads is not going to be a business – as has been seen in the Internet space in India, where the top home-grown portals are losing in excess of Rs 150 crore a year even after 14 years of the Internet in India.

There are three things which need to come together to offer such a service in India:

Reach: distribution and relationships to reach the top 100 million target audience

Cash Balance: enabling people to pay to create prepaid accounts independent of the mobile operator

Open Publishing Platform: to allow content publishers and service providers to create content. This is similar in concept to the iPhone AppStore.